ADVERTISEMENT

Softball FSU outfielder Kennedy Harp named ACC player of the week

FSU sports information:

Florida State softball sophomore outfielder Kennedy Harp was named the ACC Player of the Week and was one of four players to be named a Star of the Week by Softball America on Tuesday. This is the first time Harp has been named the ACC Player of the Week and joins Jaysoni Beachum as the only Seminoles to win ACC Player of the Week since the start of the 2024 season.

Harp had the best week of her young career this past week at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge. In five games, Harp hit .667 (10-for-15) with 10 RBI, three triples, two doubles and one home run for the Seminoles. Harp had three consecutive games with a triple against Louisiana Tech and No. 4 Oklahoma State. Harp performed in the clutch for the Noles in their 8-0 win against No. 4 Oklahoma State. With the bases loaded and two outs in a 0-0 game, Harp delivered with a bases clearing triple to give the Noles all the momentum and 3-0 lead. Harp's three triples were tied for the most in the country. In just five games, Harp is already nearing her totals for hits and RBI from all of 2024 season as she had 21 hits and 19 RBI in 2024.

The Seminoles will be back in action this week at the Shriners Children's Clearwater Invitational. FSU will play No. 16 Missouri on Thursday, Ohio State on Friday, Wichita State on Saturday and UCF on Sunday.

Basketball Pregame notes: FSU at Wake on Wednesday (7 p.m. on ESPNU)

Florida State (14-9, 5-7 ACC) returns after a bye to play at Wake Forest (18-6, 10-3) on Wednesday at 7 on ESPNU.

This would be a big road win if the Seminoles could pull off the upset. Wake is 68th in KenPom and among Joe Lunardi's last four teams in on Tuesday's projected bracket. FSU's biggest home win is over Pitt, now 42nd in KenPom.

On Monday's ACC coaches' zoom, I asked Leonard Hamilton if he thought last week's announcement about his resignation at season's end could put added pressure on the players to "win one for coach," in my words.

"It has not been an issue that I can see at this particular moment, but I think I'm close enough and I got enough intuition that if it becomes an issue, I'll speak to it," Hamilton said. "Right now. I think we’re in a pretty good place, wanting to finish the season strong. So I haven’t detected that I got any issues now. But I’ll probably start being a little more engaged in that area, just to make sure we don't have anything negative resulting from the situation."

Wake has won three straight, including a West Coast sweep of Stanford and Cal. The Demon Deacons are a bad 3-point shooting team at 29 percent (349th in DI) but they are very efficient inside the arc, shooting 54.5 percent (69th in DI).

Cameron Hildreth (6-4, 195) has scored in the 20s in those three wins for Wake. Hunter Sallis (6-5, 185) had 20 points and 19 points in the wins over Cal and Stanford, respectively.

Efton Reid is a 7-foot, 250-pound F/C. Familiar name as he is someone FSU tried to land coming out of high school. He had 19 points in the win over Cal.

The Seminoles will have Taylor Bol Bowen back after he missed a few games with a concussion. Jerry Deng sounds questionable with an ankle injury.

Malique Ewin earned a double-double of 18 points and 10 rebounds in Florida State’s victory over Notre Dame on Feb. 4 – his team-leading eighth of the season and the eighth of his career. The last person with eight or more double-doubles in a single season was Matthew Cleveland who earned 11 double-doubles during the 2022-23 season. The single-season school record for double-doubles is 24 (in 26 games) by Dave Cowens during the 1968-69 season.

Jamir Watkins enters Wednesday’s game having scored 1,457 career points and needs 43 points to reach the 1,500-point career point plateau. The second-year Seminole has also scored 935 points in his 56-game Florida State career and needs 65 points to reach 1,000 points as a Seminole. That would be an impressive achievement as he's in year 2 in Tallahassee. Watkins is ranked fourth in the ACC in scoring (all games, 18.4 ppg).

FSU's next home game will be Saturday against red-hot Clemson (21-5), which is now ranked No. 23 and is coming off wins over Duke and UNC.

  • Sticky
Football Recruiting Setting FSU's 2026 recruiting board: Quarterbacks

Junior Days on campus and January in-school/in-home visits have been completed and Florida State's 2026 recruiting class is officially on the clock.

Over the next few weeks, the Osceola staff will be setting up a virtual board, detailing prospects that are either strongly considering Florida State, have established mutual interest, or could be circled back around on later on in the year if need be. We will be going position by position over the next few weeks to set the board before the quiet period begins at the beginning of March. Today's edition of the series will be covering quarterbacks.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

Question for the board

My wife's a military brat; they lived in a number of foreign countries while she was growing up. I know they were in Turkey for a few years when she was little, Germany for a bit while she was in HS; a couple of others in Europe but I don't recall which.
I've never lived in another country, but we did co-own a house on Roatan (island off the coast of Honduras) for 10+ years from the mid 90s to mid 00s, which we used extensively for scuba-diving vacations. It was near the community that catered to Euro backpackers, had an abundance of fun diving & partying there.

As far as countries been to...only listing places where we stayed for multiple nights, so not including cruise day stops:

Canada
Mexico
Honduras
Belize
China
Germany
Italy
Greece
Austria
Switzerland
France
Bahamas

Hard to say what was my favorite; China was extremely interesting, in Greece and Italy the food and views were outstanding...but the early years on the Honduran islands were pretty spectacular...young, no real responsibilities tying us down (we hadn't had kids yet), seeing the amazing reef system below the sea, and the charm of being in a place where time stood still & you weren't a slave to the clock...first few trips there were only a couple of TVs in the entire town, so when you went out to dinner or for drinks you actually talked & socialized with everyone, discussing what you'd seen on that day's dives. Good times....

Been to a number of places on cruises (in the Caribbean, haven't done any to other areas). Most interesting was a week on one of the old Windjammer Barefoot cruises. They've gone out of business, but it they once owned a number of tall ships that they used to cruise the Caribbean; we spent a week in the BVI, which was spectacular. Small ship, about 40 guests & a dozen crew; nice thing was it could get to the smaller islands & to areas that the large cruise ships could not access. Day would start with breakfast onboard, then a chat with the captain, where he'd preview where we would be spending the day & let you know what the "drink of the day" was onboard, with the final, primary ingredient always being rum. We'd be anchored off the shore of one of the islands & use the lifeboat to tender to shore, with the final words from the captain always being "last tender back to the ship is at 5 pm. If you'd like a beautiful photo of The Flying Cloud, sails full-rigged, sailing away into the sunset, just get back to the pier at 5:01."

  • Sticky
Football Mike Norvell thinks leaders are emerging among FSU's transfers, returners

While there were myriad problems for Florida State on the field that fans and media could see on game days, there are intangibles like leadership and accountability that bind players to a team.

Those qualities were missing in 2024. As critical as it was for the FSU staff to flip the roster, it was about recruiting newcomers (transfers and freshmen) who could be leaders, too.

Coach Mike Norvell discussed a variety of names when asked about leadership during his spring booster tour stop in Orlando on Saturday, beginning with a few transfers before mentioning some returning players. Norvell said he’s happy with how the Seminoles have meshed in the weight room, Tour of Duty workouts as well as off the field.

He began by saying Boston College transfer quarterback Tommy Castellanos is “great” and Wake Forest transfer center Luke Petitbon is “also standing out” before broadly stating his expectation for the mindset of players.

“Those guys are coming into a program and, yes, we know that there's limited time that they're going to be a part of Florida State,” Norvell said. “It's going to be a year. But you know what? If it's everything that you have, right, in this team, well, you only get one year. I don't care if you're a freshman, this is the only 2025 football team you're going to get. What do you want to give for this team?

"And so as long as we get that type of investment, you'll see those leaders emerge. But it's great. I've been really pleased.”

Football Recruiting Rivals analyst makes early prediction with four-star DE Katrell Webb to FSU

Some thoughts from this weekend's camp in Atlanta on four-star DE Katrell Webb. More from Rivals analyst John Garcia:

The Under Armour All-America Game camp tour kicked off in the state of Georgia and there was considerable talent on hand. Rivals connected with several prospects, parents and coaches surrounding the event and there are several programs trending or set to trend for many of the best on hand, so why not make some early calls on their college destination?

ADVERTISEMENT

Filter

ADVERTISEMENT